


Seeking Satisfaction

by pureselfindulgence



Category: White Collar
Genre: Developing Relationship, Drama, Multi, Romance, Sexual Content, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 04:25:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pureselfindulgence/pseuds/pureselfindulgence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the early days of P/E/N, and Elizabeth still has her reservations, even as her attraction to and affection for Neal grow. Elizabeth-centric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeking Satisfaction

**Author's Note:**

> Because bunnies.

She is past the age of rushing blindly in, and so are they, even if they don't seem to know it. She remembers that reckless delirium, understands it, forgives it. But it means that she must be responsible for all of them. She must be responsible for  _him._  
  
It has been her insistence, in the heady days of early confessions and suddenly licensed desire, that slows the race to the bedroom to a meditative stroll.  
  
From the beginning, she demands honesty between all of them. That is easy for her, always direct when she needs to be, and turns out to be easier yet for Peter. When they meet for the first dinners that are also dates, Peter's words flow like wine, as if a dam somewhere inside of him has burst. As if his feelings, once locked away in darkness, have suddenly been set free and given wings. Neal...struggles.  
  
If she were relying only on her senses to tell her, she'd never guess. But her heart says that there is significance to each pause, each blink, even when Neal speaks with an apparent candor that clearly surprises Peter, delights him. Neal is not yet done with secrets, even if he is trying to be. It worries her. When she tells them—because they must have honesty—Peter is disappointed in her suspicions, but Neal is only resigned.  
  
One night, they curl up together for a movie. Under her gaze—never disapproving, never unwelcoming, but always watchful—the men exchange only chaste touches, fitting hand to hand with the delicate precision of someone assembling fine and intricate jewelry. Even so, they both react as if those touches are electric, and she can see the yearning in their eyes. She knows it is only a matter of time before they succumb, and prays that they are not all being driven to an inevitable mistake.  
  
The first time they have sex, it is soft and slow and somehow innocent. They are gentle, cautious in their explorations. When they fall asleep, it is side by side with Peter in the middle, only hands allowed to bridge the aching voids of empty inches. Elizabeth has accepted the night. It is sooner than she would like, but at least it has happened before pressure can overwhelm restraint.  
  
The next morning, Neal touches them both as if they are holy. They exchange kisses filled with a lasting wonder, and she cannot help but see how lovely her lovers are together. When she sees the rapt infatuation written plain on Peter's face, she hopes that they always will be.  
  
They all touch much more after that, lingeringly, intimately. Their mindful distances are dissolving, as are the boundaries of attraction. Elizabeth unthinkingly runs her hand along the back of Neal's neck, and he gives her a look compounded of sweetness and longing that frankly surprises them both. He and she are coming to understand that they could want each other as much as they both want Peter.  
  
She brings lunch to the office one day, and they sit at decorously separate stations around Peter's desk, using an almost painful self-control to keep their hands on forks instead of each other. When she kisses Peter goodbye, she sees a flash of wistfulness cross Neal's face, and wonders if it's because he wants to kiss both of them. He smoothes it away quickly, and she tries to see only sensible discretion in the hasty cover. Whatever her reservations, craving sizzles in the air, and she knows they will all be in bed again soon.  
  
The second time they have sex, it is urgent and hungry and wanton. They devour each other, unable to touch or taste or fuck fast enough, and Elizabeth discovers the depth of her burgeoning thirst for Neal. He makes love like an artist, sculpting ecstasy from the raw materials of her body, and he kisses like a fallen angel, with a passion both divine and deeply lustful. He is also the perfect conspirator, and joins her with enthusiasm in bringing Peter to blissful incoherence. When they all settle, it is in a haphazard tangle of sweaty limbs and languorous contentment.  
  
With the fever at least slightly assuaged, they begin to glide into domesticity. By some unspoken agreement, although Neal sleeps at his apartment, he is at the house more and more. He and Peter walk Satchmo; he and Elizabeth make dinner. They all spend a weekend repainting the guest room. Elizabeth makes snacks and keeps the dog from getting into the paint while Peter, with meticulous, workmanlike patience, does three walls and most of the fourth. Neal covers the rest with a mural of impossible beauty.  
  
They go to parks, to restaurants, to museums. Neal is becoming inescapably woven into their lives, and it is idyllic. The only things that bother Elizabeth are the shadows that sometimes fall over his eyes, to be banished in the next instant. She tries not to see his eyelashes, sweeping down in the rapid blink that clears his expression, as shutters that are meant to obscure. She worries that he thinks all this cannot last, worries about both Peter and herself falling, committing too soon. Most of all, she worries that it is already too late.  
  
She must know, while there is a chance they can still pull apart without destroying each other. She must know what Neal is thinking, what Neal is hiding. She must know if it is a threat, something to doom all this happiness and break their hearts. It is fortunate, therefore, that she has picked up tactics from Peter, and that she is an organizer by nature.  
  
The next time they have sex, it is with forethought and strategy and determination, at least on Elizabeth's part. After over a decade of marriage, she knows how to guide Peter, and it doesn't take much effort to make him focus on Neal. With her help, Neal is pushed, hard, over the brink of exhaustion. In the end, he is a devastated area, all his walls breached, and that is just what she wants. She grips his jaw and kisses him slowly, thoroughly, deliberately, then pulls back to look into his eyes.  
  
There are shadows there, and he cannot hide them. For the first time, she can study them closely, at her leisure. Eventually, she asks what he is thinking of.  
  
Her and Peter, he says. There is a brief silence, but he is the one to break it. He is too tired to conceal anything, even from himself. He is thinking, he says, of her and Peter...and Kate.   
  
The shock that rips through Elizabeth is not betrayal, but understanding. This, she knows at last, is what he has been too afraid to reveal. Compassion displaces suspicion, and she reads the naked emotions in him. He is happy with them, but it brings on an accompanying sadness, where memories and guilt overlap. And there is an abiding love that will never quite fade, because Neal is not made to forget.  
  
In these moments of insight and vulnerability, she perceives that while Neal's heart is not perfect or unblemished, he is capable of endless devotion, of loving forever. The realization is almost dizzying, but it is comforting, too. She and Peter will always be cherished.  
  
She brushes Neal's hair back, pressing her lips to his forehead in a tender imprimatur, then pulls his head against her shoulder. On the other side of the bed, Peter is already asleep, used up by their earlier exertions. She reaches over and draws his arm across, so that it rests over both his lovers.  
  
Elizabeth is finally satisfied.


End file.
